Of course ghosts don't exist.... but land mines do! Oh boy, do they!

[teenonfire4evil]

So now that all that crazy bullshit is over and done with, lets talk about what I know is on the back of everyone's minds: fallout 3.

You know how I did all that bitching about Mass Effect a couple months ago? I mean, it was a great game, and I enjoyed playing it, but there was this nagging feeling that it could have been so much more. That the 80% of the game made up of side quests could have been awesome instead of sucky... that the "evil" character path could have let you play an evil character instead of just someone that is a little bit of a douche... that the weapons could have been so much more interesting and made more sense.

It feels like someone read and understood what I was saying, and then made Fallout 3. I love this game. I want to do every quest, hear every line of dialogue, explore every inch of the map, and then do it again as an evil asshole. The number of things this game does right is overwhelming. Lets discuss:

• Almost everyone you meet in the game is hilarious.
• Character progression is realistic and satisfying. Guns don't really do more damage as the game goes on... you just get much better at shooting them. You can also find some of the best guns in the game right from the beginning, but do not have the skill to use them effectively.
• Almost all the quests I've run into, from the main storyline to the little side quests, are interesting and push you to explore fun and unique locations, from bandit camps in ruined shopping centers, to subway tunnels full of firebreathing giant ants.
• When you are out there in the middle of nowhere, you really feel like you are out there in the middle of nowhere.
• I haven't played an "evil" character yet, but from looking at the dialog options and situations, I have the feeling this game allows you to be a truly colossal bastard.

A few quibbles though, and things that I hope they address in future patches:

• Instant-travel systems in games like this are kinda necessary, but take a lot of immersion out of the game. That feeling that you are out in the middle of nowhere might be there, but there is also the knowledge that you can be right back home with the touch of a button, at any time. Without it, scrounging and looting would be an absolute bitch, unless they scattered around a lot more vendors. I guess I could always just refuse to use it, but a lot of necessary game mechanics are kind of built around it, such as the looting mentioned above. Your guy just cant carry that much, and money is rare enough that you feel very bad leaving expensive, heavy loot behind. On the other hand, ammo isn't rare at all, and since they made the choice to have ammo be weightless, you eventually find yourself with massive piles of it at all times. I know this was a decision made to maintain playability over immersion, but it is too bad.
• To me, the food/stimpacks/rads system they are going for is interesting, but ended up being badly balanced and broken. So the idea is that since the world is an atomic wasteland, all food and water is irradiated. Eating irradiated food builds up your Rad counter, which eventually makes you sick or kills you. However, it also gives you health back. Unfortunately, the game also throws huge numbers of stimpacks at you, which give you 4x as much health, but without any rads at all. This makes food completely pointless, at least in my experience so far. I would have flipped it around... made food give you a lot of health and rads, and stimpacks just a small amount of rad-free health. I mean, why put the functionality in the game, if they end up making it completely unnecessary?